Model-Free Closed-Loop Stability Analysis: A Linear Functional Approach

Performing a stability analysis during the design of any electronic circuit is critical to guarantee its correct operation. A closed-loop stability analysis can be performed by analysing the impedance presented by the circuit at a well-chosen node without internal access to the simulator. If any of the poles of this impedance lie in the complex right half-plane, the circuit is unstable. The classic way to detect unstable poles is to fit a rational model on the impedance. This rational approximation has to deal with model order selection, which is difficult in circuits with transmission lines. In this paper, a projection-based method is proposed which splits the impedance into a stable and an unstable part by projecting on an orthogonal basis of stable and unstable functions. Working with a projection instead of a rational approximation greatly simplifies the stability analysis. When the projection is mapped from the complex plane to the unit disc, the projection boils down to calculating a Fourier series. If a significant part of the impedance is projected on the unstable part, a low-order rational approximation is fitted on this unstable part to find the location of the unstable poles.